Time to pay some bills. How are you going to do it?

Today is Family Day! You are no doubt enjoying it with your family and maybe even playing a game or two.

Games are important, and at some point in our lives we all play them – young or old. Board games, hide and go seek and tag are an important part of almost everyone’s childhood. Modern games are big business, especially video games. In fact, you have probably played a video game a time or two in your life – be it solitaire or Tetris. They’re fun, and the best ones teach you a thing or two about the world.

Well an American charity called Urban Ministries of Durham has come up with an interesting online game called Spent. You can play it here and read a little about it here via the Toronto Star.

While some of the situations are unique to the United States (buying health insurance for example) many of them are the same ones our patrons face every week. Do you pay off a bill collector or buy your kids new shoes? Do you focus on keeping the lights on or keeping the heat on? Do you ignore your fever and go to work, or take unpaid time off to go to the doctor knowing that it might mean the difference between eating or not next pay cheque.

Similar to the Do the Math online challenge, (here) this game puts you in the position of someone who has to make some very hard choices. Many of us don’t realize how many pay cheques away from making these hard choices we are. I hope this game gets you thinking.

What can we do about it? Well, there are local people today who need help getting through the consequences of making a lot of these choices. You can support local people who are trying to do just that by volunteering or donating. But why are so many more people being forced into living spent and not just playing it? Helping to answer that question will help make Kitchener Waterloo a more prosperous and healthier place.

One Response to “Time to pay some bills. How are you going to do it?”

[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by amy kathryn , Food Bank Waterloo. Food Bank Waterloo said: Time to pay some bills so how are u going to do it? Great blog by House of Friendship http://bit.ly/hfS1zF […]